how to make (almost) anything

Input Devices: Step Response

Final hello.load.45 board

Week 9 Tools/Resources:
Roland SRM-20 Mill
Soldering Equipment

In preparation for my final project, I wanted to get a jump on the basics of the sensor device I'm planning on using, which is a touch strip that will increase and decrease the light intensity of the lamp. I used Neil's design for the hello.load.45 board so I could gain a basic understanding of how something like this would work, so that when I move on to dealing with multiple inputs, it's (hopefully) not as overwhelming.

Before I began, I went to EECS office hours to talk through my general idea for how the touch strip might work. My intuition was that it could be a similar--just linear--version of the touchpad design which Neil brought to our attention in class, which was confirmed.

Board Fabrication

I downloaded and used the mill files on the HTM site to fabricate the raw board on the SRM-20 mill, then collected parts and soldered them in place.

I also fabricated a little touchpad out of some scrap PCB I found in the Arch Lab. I programmed the board then connected it up to he touch pad and ran Neil's python script to visualize the step response--very cool!